Serjeant Musgrave's Dance- Review

8/12/2019 Serjeant Musgrave's Dance- Review

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WORDS IN EDGEWAYS - 6

Serjeant Musgraves DanceOxford Stage Company

Roger Calvert

Critics and Leader writers have all hailed the OSC production of

Serjeant Musgraves Danceas a case of life imitating art in that John

Ardens anti-imperialist play explores Empire and the price that

imperial powers pay for their global ambitions. They all pointed out

its especial contemporary relevance to the war in Iraq and its

increasingly troubled peacekeeping. I saw the performance on

Saturday 31 October at the Traverse Theatre in Edinburgh and

thought that instant modern relevance had profoundly distorted what

Arden was trying to say in the way that the text had been produced.

This influenced how all the major characters were being performed.

In particular it affected the playing of Serjeant Musgrave who is thecentral role.

In his introduction to the play John Arden states that his interest

lies in examining the possible justification of violence to end

violence:

I think that many of us must at some time have felt an

overpowering urge to match some particularly outrageous

piece of violence with an even greater and more

outrageous retaliation.

With this in mind he made his protagonist a Bible soldier in the

mould of Stonewall Jackson or John Nicholson, the hero of the Siege

of Delhi; as he said, Musgrave could well have served under

Cromwell. Such men are dangerous, violent and inspired, possessed

by the conviction that war is a means of realising Gods purposes. In

carrying out a massacre amongst the striking miners of a northern

coal town as a due and fit punishment for the atrocity carried out in a

far-off and forgotten colony he will be an instrument of God s

purpose. Moreover God will make Himself apparent in the moment

of punishment. Musgrave believes his testimony in killing will

redeem the country and make it a fit nation for the Lord. So

comments such as Jeremy Kingstons in The Timesthat Musgrave is

calling for a saner world ignore Musgraves demand that the world

follows Gods laws which is not quite the same thing as a liberal

dislike of violence.Moreover this tamed Musgrave of the OSC production is

supposed to be sufficiently attractive to make it credible that men

would follow him all the way back from Cyprus, Iraq or wherever,

which is how Edward Peake played him. The performance veered

towards Victorian nanny: he was so affable and concerned about his

men. It is more likely that Musgrave despises his followers who are

the instruments of his mission but cannot survive without him. Not

only in practical matters but also in his function as their moral

mainspring. Without him their guiltand this is a guilt that arises


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from flaws in their personalities, just as much as from their

complicity in the atrocitywould render them motionless. It is his

vision and certainty that make them move. He projects their guilt and

inadequacy back at them, which is the source of his power over

them. This, in part, makes the play a study in how a man of

seemingly unbreakable conviction can control the minds of lesser

spirits; what the flaws are in their psychologies that allow him thissupremacy and how weaker minds may find the inner resources to

finally rebel as all his followers do by the end of the play. To

Sparky, one of the deserters who has given himself up to Musgraves

purpose, the Serjeant is God: You see hes like God, and its as if

wewere like angels.

So if Edward Peel shifts his interpretation of Musgrave into

something more modern and less godlike so it gives the actor playing

Sparky room to provide a self-sufficient study in combat-fatigue

which is what Billy Carter, the actor taking Sparkys role did,

endlessly twitching and fiddling with his hair. One commentator said

he was feverish which is something of an understatement. But the

drawback to this study in neurasthenia came when Sparky takesAnnie, the barmaid in the pub where theyre lodged, to bed. In

Carters interpretation this was an attempt to blot out the fear and

horror of the past using sex but in Ardens version Sparky was

proposing a partnership which would create a new value which

would wipe out the past and end the dominance of Musgraves

vision:

Sparky(his mind working). Why,

Annie . . . Annie . . . you as well: another not paid

for . . . O, I wishIcould pay. Say, suppose I paid for

yours; why, maybe you could pay for mine.

Annie. I dont understand.

Sparky(following his thought in great disturbance of

mind). It wouldntbe anarchy, you know; he cant be right

there! All it would be, is:youlive andIlivewe dont

need his duty, we dont need his Worda dead mans a

dead man! We could call it allpaid for! Your life and my

lifemake our ownroad, we dont follow nobody.

But in this production this rebellion of the angels never took place

because Carter was committed by virtue of his interpretation to use

the words as talking off the top of his head as a way of getting Annie

to lie down with him. So he didnt observe the pauses and the stagedirection to show that at this moment the character is thinking up a

totally revolutionary idea which will free him from the tyranny of the

Serjeant. Consequently, this crucial idea for the plays structure of

ideas is not given the weight it requires at the end when Musgrave

has failed to carry out his plan and God has not manifested himself

to a newly cleansed and deserving people.

The Serjeant is standing with his back to the audience, and in

the OSC production, standing in the light of a slide, projecting prison


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bars upon him. Attercliffe, the last of his followers is lying on the

ground downstage of Musgrave so he automatically invites our

attention as more important than the Serjeant. Technically speaking,

the Serjeant should have been central in the light with Attercliffe an

inner voice as well as a character on the fringes of the light. Because

Musgrave has had his faith shattered, everything that gave meaning

has gone as he struggles to work out why it went wrong. At thismoment Mrs. Hitchcock, the landlady, enters with a drink for the

two men which the Serjeant at first refuses but then accepts. Without

wishing to dispute Ardens determination that this is not a symbolist

play I do not think it is stretching matters too far to conclude that this

is the first time that Musgrave has accepted a gift from someone else

or given anything of his emotions to another. So that to present this

moment on stage as sacramental, without overloading it with

significance dramatically, would be appropriate since it represents a

victory over him, which finally the Serjeant recognises. Then

Attercliffes song, which concludes the play, becomes a projection of

Musgraves inner state, as songs do in Brecht, rather than a piece of

clunking stagecraft as several of the critics saw it. Not that therearent examples of clunking stagecraft: at the climax of the

penultimate scene, Annie appears at an upstairs window and

descends via a ladder to deliver her bombshell concerning how

Sparky died. There is a difference between a deus ex machinawho is

lifted on to the roof of the skena by a crane and one who descends by

ladder propped against a rickety flat, whilst trying to manage her

skirts. The audience drops all attention from the point of the action to

see if this risky piece of DIY theatre will succeed.

Nevertheless, Serjeant Musgraves Danceis a more interesting

piece of theatre than this production or its critics give it credit for.

Documents

Serjeant Musgrave's Dance- Review